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Janis Ehling is general secretary of Germany’s Die Linke (The Left Party). He oversaw the come-from-behind victory of the party in the elections to the Bundestag this February. He was born and raised in the former German Democratic Republic. He also sits on the Executive Board of the Party of the European Left in the European Parliament.

WB: Before the February elections, it was generally expected that it would be difficult for Die Linke to make the five percent hurdle or cut for representation in Parliament, but you got nearly eight percent of the vote, what happened?

JE: We were at three percent at the polls during the autumn. Most of our members thought we were facing a great defeat. But we rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Even for us it was very surprising, because over the last few years, owing to the split with Sahra Wagenknecht, we were in a deep crisis. I, myself, thought that, like the Italians, like in other countries where the far right is on the march, we would be totally defeated.

WB: What was responsible for the turnaround?

JE: Oh, I think that’s a big puzzle. There were some key moments. Over the last 10-15 years, we had big strategic discussions in our party. It was not only around which part of the left is responsible for its decline but also about how the whole situation in the western countries is changing. When our party was formed, like most of similar parties in Europe, we were a gathering of people against neoliberalism. We brought together different currents of the left and the anti-capitalist movement to take on neoliberalism. That was the main goal. Unlike the workers’ movement, these parties were made up of different types of people from the left. Aside from opposing neoliberalism, there was no common goal.

But now with the rise of the far right, and the weakening of the traditional German conservatives–like Angela Merkel and Friedrich Merz, who is an old-fashioned neoliberal–there is a clear, common enemy. It was a very similar to the fight of Biden versus Trump. There you had a left liberal project, like the Green New Deal, a progressive program. You had that too in Germany, but it was a total disaster, so the far right had a big momentum. So, a lot of the left-wing forces in the country were really scared and they gathered around our party. We were the most disciplined.

The second thing is we used a lot of new tools, like canvassing and knocking door-to-door and social media. The funny thing is Zohran Mamdani in New York said he was inspired by Die Linke in Germany, but to be honest, it was the other way around. A few years ago, we had this donors’ campaign where we were assisted by the comrades in New York, so we learned this stuff from them.

Also, we attracted a lot of young people by using Instagram and TikTok and other social media. Before autumn, when young people had something on their social media feed, it was mainly from the far right, and since that time, it was from us too. We were competing with the far right among the young people, and among them, we were the strongest party, with 30 percent of the youth voting for us. This was something new for us since most of our comrades are old, in fact, very old.

WB: Can you elaborate on how you competed with the far right in terms of messaging?

Before we wrote our program, we asked people what they really wanted and told them what we stood for. It was not the typical left-wing debate, but telling people this is what we stand for, and we said it was a struggle between the working people and the rich. In every speech, the head of the party would say, I’m Jan van Aken and I am for the abolition of billionaires. That was always the first sentence during the election campaign. Focus, focus, focus! The second thing was about the high cost of living. So even if we were asked about immigration, we would say we wanted to tax the rich, and that was really the common goal.

WB: This sounds very much like Mamdani in New York.

JE: No coincidence.

WB: About Mamdani, could you clarify? Did he say he was influenced by Die Linke…?

JE: Yes, he said he was influenced by Die Linke. But as I said, that’s the funny thing. Ten years ago, we sent a lot of people to New York, to learn from our comrades on the left how they did their campaigns. We used the same methods here during the campaign. So, they influenced us, and later we influenced them.

WB: And your own personal role in this? What do you think was your personal contribution?

JE: I was the organizer of the election campaign, but it was a totally new situation for me, for all of us. I’ve been 17 years in the party, and there are still older comrades, some from the 1968 movement, and they were telling us it’s a totally new situation. Election campaigns can be a bit boring, but this time, people were in the streets, cheering us on, saying they were thankful for us being there, competing with the far right. It was totally crazy. Let me just give you some numbers. In the first of January, we had a party with 58,000 members. And in six weeks, we doubled the size of our membership: 110,000 members at the end of the election campaign. I was 23, 17 years ago, when I joined the party. Now, I am one of the old veterans. There are only about 9-10 percent of the party who would be considered veterans. That’s really funny.

We phoned every new member, and they directly joined the campaign. So, it was really huge. For instance, in Berlin, we had meetings of 600 canvassers, and there was also a lot of support coming from other countries.

WB: And this was throughout Germany?

JE: Yes, but in order to win, we had to focus on certain areas. Six areas specifically, and we mobilized a lot of our members for these areas. They were knocking on literally every door, talking to people.

WB: Which areas were these?

JE: These were three areas in Berlin,........

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